Tag Archives: How Many Times Must I Fall Down

Q: What’s up with all the vids?

A: Get with it, jack. No one reads anymore. This is 2008. It’s all about now… baby.

Q: Can’t help notice there are subtitles…

A: This is the sing along version. I envision the whole family home, together, nights, clustered around the big screen monitor, singing along… “How many doors must I kick in / before I find the magic one?” Junior and Sissy can take the high harmony parts this happy little ditty cries out for while Mommy and Daddy take the root and low harmony. Family home together… does it get any lovelier?

Q: What is this “magic door” and why does it have to be kicked in?

A: If you have to ask… you can’t afford it.

Q: Have you ever had to sleep in the sand?

A: Yes. But I remembered who I was when I woke up. I was a recent graduate of one of the most academically mediocre suburban high schools to ever pull down a string of state athletic championships.

Q: Did you ever “see how it’s all done”?

A: Yes. Yes, I did.

Q: Does your cat ever get up off that chair behind you?

A: Yes. Sometimes she sleeps on the couch.

version: 6/24/2007

lyrics

How Many Times Must I Fall Down?

How many roads
must I walk down
before I can sleep in the sand?
How many times
must i fall down
before I can
take someone’s hand?

How many doors
must I kick in
before I find
the magic one?
How many dreams
must I tear apart
before I see how it’s all done?

How did i get here?
where have I been?
How long have
I been this way?

I remember a time
I remember a place
I just don’t
remember the way

How many clowns
does it take to screw down
a reason for a man
to exist?

How many times must
I see the light?
There must be
something I missed…

How did i get here?
where have I been?
How long have
i been this way?

I remember a time
I remember a place
I just don’t remember the way

How many roads…

(C)2007, TK Major

How many times must I fall down?

3 Replies

How Many Times Must I Fall Down?
New song alert!

When he was a kid he’d lie on his back in the sand just above the tideline where it dropped away to the bay, listening to the murmur of his grandparents talking by the firepit, watching the stars shimmer and wave above the fire, red glowing bits tracing the undulations as they crossed the starfield.

Sometimes, if no one else was nearby to be bothered, his grandfather would turn on the Sony transistor radio quietly, tuning in KFI 130 miles to the north, the reassuringly familiar voice of Vin Scully calling a Dodger game suggesting there was continuity even in an era when you could carry a radio in your coat pocket, Russian satellites were circling the globe — and the Dodgers would move from Brooklyn to L.A.

Dedicated readers will remember I posted a link to a discussion of an earlier version of this song in the songwriter’s forum I’ve been moderating for the last few weeks. The discussion there and your comments here helped me greatly. The changes were mostly not dramatic — but the extended discussion of the how many clowns section did prove especially helpful and I think it resulted in getting a lot closer to what I was after.

I was tempted to say that I wished I could have incorporated everyone’s suggestions — but in a very real way I did.

So I thank my friends there and here for their generous and thoughtful comments and suggestions. There wasn’t a bad one in the lot.